They 'Never Imagined'... A Tale of Intentional Blindness and Enabling

Want to see the creation of a criminal, read this: 

Pierre Loury talked about going to college and becoming an engineer, yet he skipped classes for nearly a year in high school.

Apparently he 'talked' alot.  Being raised in a culture where you're given everything without being expected to work for it will create this attitude.  (aka Socialism)

He encouraged his little brother to stay in sports and out of gangs, yet he claimed to have joined the New Breeds around the age of 10.

And what do you think 'little brother' was paying more attention to?  Words (more of that talking), or actions?

He spent hours recording rap music in a converted bedroom closet, but toward the end of his short life his Facebook postings show him posing with guns, cash and drugs and talking of chasing rival dealers off his block.

Well at least he was working towards something.. Right?  But the second part showed the direction he was working towards, along w/ more 'talking'. 

Still, his family and friends never imagined he would die in an alley not far from his home at age 16, shot and killed by a Chicago police officer last month after allegedly threatening him with a gun.

Really?  They 'never imagined' it?  We'll see why in a bit.  But it gets better....

"He was becoming a man," said his stepfather, Vantrease Frazier, who disputes the police account. "You know every teenage boy made mistakes and did stuff they ain't supposed to do, but you got to learn from that."

Yeah, we all do that. I drank underage, stayed out late, did some stupid stuff... But there's stupid and then there's terminally stupid. Keep going.....

Loury, a flashy dresser who liked to impress girls, smoked marijuana every day, bounced around from school to school and often didn't go to class, according to friends and court records.

Regular drug use is not part of 'becoming a man' for the majority of the population. Note the 'flashy dresser' and 'often didn't go to class' part. That becomes important in a bit.

He had his first court case when he was 14 and within a year was busted on a heroin charge.

Yet they 'never imagined'....

By 16 he had a tattoo across his throat in honor of a friend who was slain.

Of the initials of the friend's gang.  Yet they 'never imagined'....

At the time of his death, Loury was serving a sentence of five years of probation for his involvement in the robbing and beating of a woman on a CTA train.

On probation at 16 for a violent assault and robbery...three more things that the majority don't do while 'becoming a man'

 Yet they 'never imagined'. 

The disconnect in the next couple of paragraphs I 'never imagined'.

He was becoming a man, his stepfather said, and was on his own once he left the front door, as dangerous as that could be for a rebellious teen like Loury. "(It's) how we grow up," Frazier said. "We let kids ... see themselves about what they want out of life."
They both worried as Loury started getting arrested, missing school and running away to a relative's or friend's house. He might have been on his own, but he still faced discipline at home, they said.
"Even not being here, it didn't matter where we live, he's exposed to danger, period," Hudson said, pointing outside. "I did what I was supposed to do as a mother. When I got wind of the things he was doing."Hudson would tell her son, "No, we are not doing this. I didn't raise you like that, you're a leader, you're not going to follow. He would tell me, 'Mama, I'm a do better, I know. The words started matching his actions, and he started doing better."
Frazier added, "We were hard on him. Pierre was still getting whoopings till he was like 15 with a belt.
"We never knew he was doing all this stuff because we gave him his privacy," he continued. "He never brought a gun into this house.

How do they know he never brought a gun into the house?  They admit they gave him his 'privacy' and didn't pay attention to what he did outside the house, only caring when he got caught.  They were intentionally and negligently clueless. But they 'worried' and 'never imagined'

But we're not done yet w/ the disconnect...

Eventually she saw the tattoo. Three large red letters: RMG, for Reese Money Gang.
The gang was named for Charzelle Maurice Hayes, better known as Reese. He was a 25-year-old rap artist shot and killed last summer on West Grenshaw Street in North Lawndale.

See above, yet they 'never imagined'.. because they are idiots.

Hudson said Loury got the tattoo as a sign of respect toward Hayes. "To some people, gang means family," she said. "That was his family. He got the tattoo to represent the love he had for his family."

Yep, 'loving' a violent, criminal lifestyle...Sounds like enabling to me.... Yet they 'never imagined'..  The next couple of paragraphs are justifications for joining w/ a bunch of criminals.

Then there's more lying and disconnect from his 'friends',

"We would always be the teacher's target," Reed said. "Pierre would always be sarcastic in class, which made everyone laugh, even the teacher. It was his sense of humor that would really get the class to wake up every day. And he did all his work even when he wasn't in the mood.

Translation, he acted up in class, getting everyone off topic and causing disruptions so nobody could learn.  How could he 'do his work' when he didn't show up to school most of the time? 

And the funeral?  Everyone wore 'colors'

More than 400 people crowded into the JLM Abundant Life Center for Loury's wake and funeral April 20. Nearly everyone was dressed in red, black and white, from children in red jeans to older men with red canes.

 The absolute failure of the 'justice system':

In his first case, he and a friend were arrested for trespassing after the two were spotted in May 2014 riding in a car that was stolen, authorities said. Loury was found guilty later that year and sentenced to one year of probation. The conviction was later reversed.
Loury would pick up three more cases in 2014. He was charged with disorderly conduct after he took to social media and threatened to shoot up the Ombudsman alternative school where he was attending classes at the time, court records show. He was later charged with heroin possession. Both cases were later dropped.
In the third case, Loury and several other people were charged with aggravated battery, robbery and theft. They were accused of attacking 26-year-old Melissa Schlesinger as she sat alone in a Blue Line car on the West Side and taking her iPhone5 in October 2014.
Loury was found guilty of robbery and given five years of probation, a sentence he was serving at the time of his death.

 Reversed, dropped, probation.  And you wonder why criminals aren't afraid of the system.. There are NO consequences.... unless of course you're only charge is having a single round of ammo or owe money to the IRS.  THEN you're a felon for life.

The self admitted run-up to the end:

Loury admitted he had been a member of the New Breeds street gang since he was 10 or 11 and that he would spend all of his free time with gang-affiliated friends, according to the report written by a probation officer, Rance Hopkins. He identified his hobbies as "singing and writing rap music and working on the computer," Hopkins wrote.
Loury said he smoked marijuana every day and hadn't been at school during the first semester of the 2014-15 academic year, except for one day, the report says.
When asked why he attended for only one day, Loury said "he did not have bus fare," the report states.
He also skipped a lot of classes earlier in 2014 when he was still at DRW College Prep.
"He indicated that he was unaware of what his grades were at the time, but acknowledged that he was failing most of his classes before he decided to stop attending school altogether," Hopkins wrote.

His mother was in on this interview where he admitted to criminal actions, violence, drugs, and nearly never attending school but she 'never imagined'

And still he 'talked'.

 Loury said he understood the importance of getting a good education and stated that his favorite subject was mathematics. The teen also said he wanted to graduate from high school and attend college.

 Because that's what momma and the interviewer wanted to hear. And she remained blind to everything else, even during the interview:

Loury's mother said she noticed her son had become angry and aggressive and was stealing money from relatives and personal items from his stepfather, such as watches and earrings, according to the report.

But it wasn't his fault... it was the fault of those kids he hung around w/.

and more crap from the 'justice system'

 He cited a recent study by the Cook County Juvenile Probation Department showing that fewer than 25 percent of juvenile defendants in 2012 were convicted of a crime within three years of finishing a sentence for a prior offense.

Yet this thug was, according to the records, only 'convicted' of one crime.  All the others were 'dismissed, dropped, or reversed' which makes this statistic completely useless.

Now momma and stepdaddy are suing the police because there's no way their baby boy, who admitted to rampant drug use, violently assaulted a woman, and threatened others repeatedly, could ever do anything like that.  Because they 'never imagined'.

THIS is a checklist for the failure of our culture.  Enabling, blind, ignorant parents, a useless court system, and a society that discourages responsibility and accountability.